Athens, Greece (3 Aug 2009)

It's my Greece/Turkey trip that I experienced the most firsts.

It's the first trip I practically travel with a stranger..not really a stranger stranger but a friend's friend which I never met who nevertheless is fun to travel with (at least I can concentrate in taking pictures and not map reading)

It's the first time I miss two flights (I have never miss one before..at least not due to my fault), a ferry and a military tattoo back in Edinburgh.

Back to Athens. I met up with my suppose travel mate in Gatwick airport since there was no direct flight from Edinburgh. And that's when we miss the flight as there were along queue to the counter to check in and we practically did not hear when they announced for Athens passenger to go forward to check in.. pretty stupid excuse but still two blur sotongs manage to miss the flight. First time for me, first Europe trip for him..and we end up had to crash at a friend of mine's place in London for a night after I begged that we are ok to sleep in the living room.

The next day we took off quite early to the airport to make sure that this time we opened our ears and listen to any announcement made and yes we did managed to reach Athens by nightfall. After checking in, we grab some bite and dozed off..

The next day we had only half a day up to 4pm to explore Athens as we had booked the ferry to Santorini. We only managed to explore the famous Acropolis before rushing to Piraues port to catch our ferry. Acropolis is the ancient city of Athens and the temple to goddess Athena (I love the name!) and the temple looked rather grandeur at the top of the hill. Although we had to hike under the sweltering heat of Greece where the temperature was more like 40 degree, once we reach the top of the hill, it was worth it. I would say, it was quite easy to get around in Athens and everywhere is connected via the metro though we stayed in quite a dodgy area which was quite scary to walked at night. 

And yet we managed to miss the ferry ..sigh I was getting pretty cooked up with missing all this transportations..to find out that the ferry that we were supposed to be on was cancelled and they have rescheduled us to another. If I know that Greeks ferries had same 'culture' like Msian transportation system ie being not on time, we would have rushed for the next ferry but yet since we didnt know (and I thought all European transports are on time - being the trains)we took the slow passive ferry from Athens and Santorini at night. We bought the cheapest ticket and had to sleep on the open air docked.Though it was quite cold at night and tad not too comfortable, nevertheless it was the best experience as we managed to catch the most amazing sunrise from the ferry the next morning.. :)